


What Followed

by Parralilium



Category: Maurice (1987), Maurice - E. M. Forster
Genre: Chill, Epilogue, I just want them to be happy okay?, M/M, POV Multiple, Sarcasm as Flirting, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Written for a Class, there's a cat, very soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27626420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parralilium/pseuds/Parralilium
Summary: An Epilogue set a few years post-Maurice, stepping into a single day in the lives of our two lovers.
Relationships: Maurice Hall/Alec Scudder
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	What Followed

**Author's Note:**

> "According to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves."
> 
> \- Aristophanes, from Platos 'the symposium'

Mr Marrs was a gentle fellow who enjoyed the company of anyone that would allow him to have it and whose office at the village primary school always had a fresh pot of tea waiting on the side table. His disposition was kind and his posture loose and friendly, carrying himself as if his arms were wide open to the world.

At one point in time, Maurice may have found this to cause a combination of unease and longing within him, a tiny, wrestling, incessant whisper. Now, he found Mr Marrs’ inclination to friendly touches and easy gazes to be rather inconvenient and distracting, like a weed attempting to lodge itself in the ground and thrive where more lovely flowers were already growing. He had attempted to remedy this through quick - but by no means less thorough - work on the principal’s abundance of receipts and school funding delegations, removing as many opportunities as he could for Mr Marrs to utilise friendly pats without labelling himself as averse to touch - he wasn’t - and keeping a general distance of two feet between them at all times.

Mr Marrs either did not notice Maurice’s attempted crafting of an impersonal relationship or did not care to know.

“Do you have the receipts for this? I dare say it’s all rather a mess without them.”

Maurice handed a file from where he sat on the carpet by the disarrayed filing cabinet to the other man - seated at his solid oak desk - surrounded by similar piles of paperwork. Mr Marrs ran his eyes over the page with little more than a furrow of the brow. This was the expression he had held for the last two hours. Maurice could only guess it was meant to indicate a combination of moderate solicitude and blithe attentiveness.

“ _ March eighth, _ ey? Let’s see, let’s see. Oh. No. No, I can’t find them.”

This had been the case for the better part of the day. 

“Look,” Maurice said, checking his watch;  _ 4:36, _ “I would like to help you but you’ve got everything mixed up and there’s not much I can do for your finances if I don’t even know where half of them have gone. I can come back, but you’ll need to find the receipts for these-” he pointed at a growing pile on the desk, “-and the payment contracts for the ones here.”

Maurice stood and dropped a second large pile in front of the sour-faced principal. 

“I’m not a scout Mr Marrs. Not here to collect and sort all your things. Not my posting.” he sighed at the way the man's eyes darted to meet his own, searching for a  _ however _ or a  _ but I will make an exception for you, good fellow, because I’ve come to quite like your company _ . Maurice had not come to like his company. 

Mr Marrs conceded with a curt nod and said nothing more.

“Good day to you,” said Maurice. Then he collected his briefcase and walked out the door.

***

Alec felt the same towards the stray cat who’d taken residence in their shed as Maurice had felt towards the overeager principal, yet they would never admit this to each other for fear it would cause quite the quarrel. The cat in question had arrived three weeks prior during a thunderstorm that almost took their roof off and Maurice decided in a glorious display of chivalry to take it upon himself to care for the moggie, giving it part of the fish Alec had caught the day before and calling the beast Aphro.

This had all occurred a week prior, since which Alec fiddled around and rebuilt their roof almost entirely to its former non-glory. The cat remained. The cat enjoyed running between Alec’s legs while he tried to carry firewood into the house. 

“Yer a right nuisance, you know that? Always in the way aren’t ya? Bloody cat.” He toed the beast to the side, and the beast gave a little hiss of disapproval. 

“Back a’ya, see how I feel ya mog.”

The repairs had come along steadily; the roof no longer leaked and the wood floors only creaked on the third or fourth panel rather than every single one. Reluctantly, Alec had assembled a small shelter for Aphro in the back corner of the shed, a wood panel balancing over two cinder bricks and an old, woollen blanket folded haphazardly beneath. Aphro had not taken a liking to this arrangement and decided upon herself to always be in the house whether Alec complained or not, coming in through a window left precariously open in either the sitting room or the bedroom. Often Alec guessed it was Maurice who had left the windows in such a state. 

She meowed again, pushing her face into the ankle of his work pants and Alec sighed, giving in to stroke over her scabby, torn ears rather roughly. 

“I only put up with you ‘caus’ve him, you know,” which was most definitely true, and secretly Alec didn’t mind one bit.

***

Having escaped from the dreadful Mr Marrs and his abhorrently organised expenses, Maurice made his way to the corner street bakery, owned by one Mrs Walter and her young daughter Cynthia, a creature who had taken quite the fancy to Maurice despite his every avoidance of her attention. 

“Oh, Mr Hall - mama, Mr Hall is here! Would you like me to make you some afternoon tea, Mr Hall? We’ve just got a new brew in this very mornin’. It’s very good.”

Cynthia grinned wildly from behind the counter where she stood wiping a mug with a soft daffodil-coloured tea towel.

She reminded Maurice of his sisters, Ada in particular, despite the waitress being nothing like them at all. On reflection, having not seen his kin in several years, he knew he’d always regarded his sisters as lesser than they actually were, in intelligence, integrity and most importantly their worthiness of his respect. He had not been kind to them, parting without more than a word or letter, and had not come to notice this until now.

Perhaps they thought he died in the war. It may in fact be better if they did. 

“No, no tea,” he said, turning his attention back to Cynthia and her wide grin, “just the usual, thank you.”

She nodded, very slightly and perhaps disappointed to not have received permission to brew Maurice her newest brew. As an Englishman, Maurice enjoyed tea. As a rule, he avoided Walter’s concoctions by any means necessary. 

Cynthia bagged two hot steak and mushroom pies in little brown packages, folding over the tops so as to keep the heat in.

“There you go, sir. Anythin’ else immight get you?”

Maurice looked down at the glass display, full to the brim with cakes, confectionaries and other assorted sweets. One such item caught his eye a familiar golden-yellow roll filled with swirls of red and pink. 

“I’ll say - is that shirt-sleeve pudding?” he asked.

Cynthia’s eyes brightened, her back straightening and her small chest puffing out, “certainly, and I made it me-self this mornin’ too. Can I get you a slice?”

Maurice nodded eagerly, “oh yes, yes that would be grand. My mother used to make it when I was a boy. Always used raspberry she did… is that raspberry or strawberry?”

“Strawberry sent over from Mr Marrs’ third form. Just s’nice as the raspberry, I tell you.”

Maurice didn’t think anything would be ‘as nice’ as his mothers raspberry rolls, but he elected not to say.

“That’ll be all then Mr Hall?” Maurice nodded his affirmation. He paid for the goods, collected his brown paper bags and left with a small smile for Cynthia in response to her rather vigorous wave.

***

“Oi, you rotten little - outta that flower pot or I’ll ‘ave yer head!”

Aphro, though inclined to do as she was told if she wished to be fed appropriately that evening, pressed her paws deeper into the dirt of the ceramic pot and shoved her nose further into the centre of a budding Hollyhock. This being the third or fourth occurrence of the cat making good relations with his flora, Alec decided that this particular Hollyhock plant would now be belonging to the cat.

“She’s under yer care now, moggie. Don’t tread on ‘er leaves if you can help it.”

Aphro meowed in her high-pitched way, which rather reminded Alec of the way his mother stretched at his father when they were having a ‘trivial spat’ as they’d called it. 

Unlike Maurice, whose family was constantly at the forefront of his mind, Alec hadn’t thought about where his family was for quite some time. It wasn’t that he didn’t care to know - by all accounts, they should still be in the Argentine, mother in a sewing and mending shop like she planned and father working away in the back of a butchers' - but unlike his companion, the family he’d left behind was not a source of unease for the ex-gamekeeper. Alec knew very little of Maurice’s family, asides a few names and the most basic of character traits, and felt it wasn’t necessary to ask. He knew Maurice had squabbled with his siblings - over the years he’d gathered there’d been two of them, both younger sisters - and had a tumultuous relationship with his mother. Or, rather, his mother had a tumultuous relationship with her son. 

The cat brushed up against Alec’s leg, tearing him away from his thoughts. 

He sighed, “an’ whadda  _ you  _ want?”

She tilted her head to the sky, ears falling flush against her forehead, taking a grand whiff of the air, the same moment Alec noticed a trace of sharpness dancing in the wind. Something strong, and hot - an entirely familiar combination. Something sweet too, though he didn’t know what that contribution was.

The gravel of the front driveway shifted under the long strides of a gentleman's boots and Alec took himself inside, Aphro unfortunately at his heel.

*** 

“Is ‘at a roly-poly?”

“Alec, by my uncle Timms, a  _ what _ ?”

Alec rolled his eyes lightly and took the plates out of Maurice’s hands, setting them down on the linen tablecloth over their rickety dining table. It was Maurice’s idea to buy the cloth, the room appearing beyond uncivilised without it. 

“You know, a rolly-polly. Don’t tell me you’ve never ‘eard of ‘em.”

Maurice shook his head, “My mother always called it shirt-sleeve pudding,” he said quietly.

“Shirt-sleeve pudding? How’s’hat any better than a roly-poly?”

Maurice didn’t really know and he supposed neither sounded any better than the other, but still felt a twist of something knotting in his chest at the mention of his mother, forming without his approval. Alec, as he usually did when words were spoken that reminded Maurice of the family he used to hold in somewhat dear regards, noticed his unease  _ tout de suite _ . 

“Maurice, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t’ve mentioned ‘er. Wasn’t fair.”

“No, no it’s alright. It’s just, I was thinking about her before when I was at the bakery.”

“What, Walter’s?” Alec asked, and at Maurice’s confirmation he scoffed and added, “that Cynthia still right nosey I s’pose?”

His tone, rather drab, concerned Maurice, and the concern grew when he added, “right pretty girl too.”

Maurice guffawed at this and scared Aphro, who promptly removed herself from the chair she sat on - in another attempt to steal their dinner - and had her dashing underneath the table. Maurice whispered an apology to her then moved around to Alec’s side of the table, taking one hand in his own and rubbing a small circle in the back of it, then bringing it to his mouth for the faintest of kisses. 

“She’s a bother, yes, but she doesn’t hold my eye, not with you waiting at home for me.”

Alec ran his hand down Maurice's face, quiet, wistful. Then he suddenly snatched Maurice's wrists and held it between them, toothy grin on full display, “Oi - yer a gentleman no more and I’m not yer little house woman. You remember that now don’t you.”

“Anything you say, my dear.”

“Oh,  _ oh _ , my dear is it?”

“Yes.”

Alec was silent for a moment. His hands shifted from wrist to Maurice’s hand. 

“S’pose I can live with that, but no more with yer ‘I’m comin' home to you’ nonsense. If anything yer comin' home to take care’a this beast,” he pointed to Aphro, curled up on the rug under the table. 

“Well of course, forgive me. Will you still love me?”

Alec tutted his head, “Yer a right amount of ‘ard work you know that? Yes, I love you, and I don’t think I’d ever stop.”

“I know I am, and I adore you as well, my dear. Now, might we first eat these pies and then tackle this ‘roly-poly’?”

Alec nodded, patted Maurice’s hand once then dropped it as he moved back around to plate the meals. 

When they sat to eat, Maurice didn’t miss how Alec slipped a few pieces of meat to Aphro below, followed by a few broken off pieces of the cake. It caused a small stream of warmth to flow through his chest. He knew, more certainly than ever, that they would all be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for my creative writing class, is very short, is barely edited, and was written in a day. Hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
